Public Release: 28-Dec-2015
Researchers find that in race stereotypes, issues are not so black and white
Arizona State University

Recent race-related events in Ferguson, Mo., St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago, Charleston, S.C., and New York City -- all point to the continuing need to study and understand race relations in modern America. These events show how race and stereotypes are intertwined and can lead to explosive situations and protests.

Now, three Arizona State University researchers have approached this problem by asking, why do white Americans' stereotypes of black Americans take the particular forms they do? The answer, surprisingly, may have little to do with race, per se. Instead, many predominant race stereotypes reflect beliefs about how people from different environments, or 'ecologies,' are likely to think and behave.

In "Ecology-driven stereotypes override race stereotypes," published in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ASU doctoral students Keelah Williams and Oliver Sng, together with Steven Neuberg, an ASU Foundation Professor of Psychology, conducted a series of five studies examining the stereotypes people hold about individuals who live in resource-poor and unpredictable ('desperate') environments as compared to those who live in resource-sufficient and predictable ('hopeful') environments.

Research shows that desperate and hopeful environments tend to shape the behavior of those living within them by altering the costs and benefits of different behavioral strategies. Desperate ecologies tend to reward 'faster,' present-focused behaviors whereas hopeful ecologies tend to reward 'slower,' future-oriented behaviors.

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But why are these ecology-driven stereotypes relevant for understanding the content of race stereotypes?

"In America, race and ecology are somewhat confounded -- whites are more likely to live in relatively hopeful ecologies, and blacks are more likely to live in relatively desperate ecologies," said Williams. "We wanted to examine whether Americans were actually using race as a cue to ecology, and if so, whether providing ecology information independently from race information would lead people to decrease their use of race stereotypes."

To assess the relationship between ecology and race stereotypes, the researchers first examined participants' stereotypes of individuals from desperate and hopeful ecologies (with no race information provided) and compared these responses to participants' stereotypes of blacks and whites (with no ecology information provided). The patterns were identical -- stereotypes of blacks mirrored stereotypes of individuals from desperate environments, and stereotypes of whites mirrored stereotypes of individuals from hopeful environments.

"However, when provided with information about both the race and ecology of others, individuals' inferences about others reflect their ecology rather than their race," Williams said. Black and white targets from desperate ecologies were stereotyped similarly, and black and white targets from hopeful ecologies were stereotyped similarly.

"In thinking about black and white individuals from hopeful and desperate ecologies, information about the individuals' home ecology trumped information about their race," Williams said.

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because people are biased to exaggerate perceived threats, stereotypes of those from desperate ecologies are likely to be more extreme than is warranted by the actual behaviors of people living within those ecologies."